This application proposes research to explore the spirituality of an 8 -12 year old child with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive, genetically inherited, chronic disease with a life-threatening prognosis. Early confirmation of the type of genetic disease a child has allows interventions to be initiated that may affect the quality and longevity of life. What is not known is the spirituality of children with a genetically inherited, life threatening disease, even though the literature is clear that there is a heightened spirituality in the adult and adolescent populations with similar diseases. This heightened spirituality has provided meaning to the adult and adolescents' life to promote healing. Healing does not mean cure in the usual use of the word, but instead a sense of health and well-being as experienced by hope, love, sense of control, relatedness with others, finding meaning and purpose in life and disease, and a sense that there is something greater than the self (Fryback, 1993; Mytko & Knight, 1999). The purpose of this study is to explore spirituality in children who are 8 -12 years of age and who have been diagnosed with the genetic, life-threatening disease of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Giorgi's (1985) qualitative design will be used for this phenomenological study. Children 8 -12 years old with DMD will be recruited from a large, mid-western genetics clinic. Children will be invited to participate in the research until no new themes or meaning units are identified during the interviews. Interviews using open-ended questions and descriptions by the children of drawings they have made will elicit the data. Interview data will be transcribed to sheets of paper verbatim. Demographic information will be used to generate descriptive statistics for the sample population and to determine any religious belief systems that would help in the understanding of the child's responses to the questions. Analysis of the data will follow Giorgi's (1985) method of analysis. Rigor will be addressed through bracketing prior to interviewing and data analysis, using two different data collection strategies, development of a detailed Interview Schedule, using a peer debriefed, and developing an audit process for field notes and data analysis. [unreadable] [unreadable]